


Damn the Gods

by aleksandr_starshow



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, and added a bit more realism, but tried to keep the feel, i kinda threw out a lot of the canon i had issues with in the books, takes place right after the events of blood of olympus, there are mentions of ptsd and depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2618825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleksandr_starshow/pseuds/aleksandr_starshow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the demigods of Camps Jupiter and Half-Blood want to do is relax. It's been almost a month since the defeat of Gaea and things should have been returning to normal. Instead, the demigods are finding new challenges everywhere they turn - from nightmares and flashbacks, to building a cross-country bridge and singing songs in strange languages. With the arrival of some very unlikely visitors, another quest is in the making and it will be a quest that will not just change the fate of Earth, but of the universe itself.</p><p> </p><p>This is not a children's story.</p><p>-----</p><p>I had plotted the outline for this story before the publication of MC and ToA, so while I may reference aspects of those series in detail, I'm going to keep to what I had originally planned, if that's okay. :-)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damn the Gods

Never before had Annabeth looked so beautiful. Not when she was decked out in armor, golden hair long, and tied up in a wicked ponytail, mud smears on her face. Not when she was dressed in an elegant white gown with a bronze belt cinching her waist, face donned with natural cosmetics. Not even when she was hunched over one of her big architecture books, that soft frown on her face as she concentrated on studying the material at hand. She looked beautiful, radiant, just then – comfortable in her sun-kissed nakedness, her irises made of the steel of big cities and modern art, muscles taught in her lithe figure, slightly chapped lips parted in anticipation. Her fingers were at the edge of his boxers and she slowly dragged them over his hips and thighs. 

Percy bit his own lip, his breathing ragged, his nerves filled with waves of fire. They'd fooled around before. A couple of intense make-outs. Some naughty touches. A couple of hurried, vulgar conversations exchanged. But they'd never gone this far and it wasn't the individual act that Percy craved but the intimacy. There had been a few moments during their last quest where he'd felt like he couldn't get close enough to Annabeth, moments where hugs and kisses were great but not satisfying. And when she took him in her mouth, Percy couldn't help but let out a soft, strangled gasp as his whole body went rigid, and his hands were in her hair and the air was sucked right out of his lungs. Annabeth's fingers clutched his thighs as she drew him deeper, so that the head of his cock hit the back of her throat. It had to be _Annabeth_. No one else. No one else could incite this amount of desire and need inside him. 

She let him slide out of her mouth with a soft _pop!_ and when she looked up, her eyes met his and Percy's blood ran cold. 

It couldn't be.

_It couldn't be_ . 

“St-stop--” he gasped. 

But Annabeth-who-was-not-Annabeth only offered him a grin that was so _like_ Annabeth but _not_ and Percy's veins were turning to ice. He couldn't breathe as he watched his girlfriend's face change, like the skin was just melting off, her cheeks hollowing out like someone was eating her from the inside out. The chapped lips began to bleed, the steely irises faded into a sappy, stomach-churning crimson. When she smiled again, the teeth were yellowed and pointed and--

Percy bolted out of bed and dashed across his cabin before he realised that he was awake. He was safe. He looked down – his boxers were still on, the demonic Annabeth in his nightmare hadn't tried to take a chomp out of him after all and, speaking of Annabeth... Percy looked back over at the bed. She was there, in a white tank top and underwear, the sheets tangled up in her strong legs. She was resting on her stomach, her hair a rat's nest, but her eyes were open. She was awake. She hadn't even flinched when Percy had flown like a bat outta hell from his bed. Why would she? It happened almost daily. 

Annabeth lay there, eyes wide, her body stiff. That was her natural reaction to things these days. At first, she had done what Percy had done – bolted out of bed, crouched into fighting position, sometimes wielding a dagger. But as of the past couple weeks, she just woke up frozen, unable to move, paralysed with terror from whatever it was her mind was forcing her to relive. 

It wasn't until Percy had calmed down enough and made his way back to bed, that she reached a hand out to him. A small gesture, but powerful. His eyes felt wet.

But he didn't want to stay in their cabin. He could hear the waves of the ocean coming from the shells that decorated the cabin, a nice touch from Poseidon, but right now, they offered little comfort and instead, he just felt claustrophobic and restless.

“I'll be back,” he said. “Maybe you should go back to the Athena cabin?” 

“I'll be okay,” she said quietly. 

With that, he left and dashed through the camp towards the beach.

It'd been like that for what felt like forever now even though it wasn't more than a month. He was supposed to go back to the city to finish his last year of high school soon, but the closer that day came, the more he dreaded it. The only thing he really looked forward to was seeing his mother and Paul. But even so, with a wave of shame, Percy felt that he shouldn't return to his mother while he was completely wrecked. On the outside, he looked and acted fine, he supposed. He was able to keep it together while in the company of friends. You had to look closely to see that he was suffering. Jason would sometimes come and sit next to Percy during mealtimes. They wouldn't talk. But Percy knew that Jason could sense the suffering. Percy would quietly eat his food and think about just how little he knew his friend. He would think about asking Jason questions about his life, his quests, time at Camp Jupiter, maybe his beliefs and perspectives. And just as Percy was working up the nerve to start a conversation, he would give up and continue eating. This happened frequently. And at the same time, Piper would go and sit with Annabeth, even though cabin counselors weren't supposed to leave their tables. The seven, well... six... had been given more free reign lately to do as they pleased. With Mr. D gone, supposedly back on Olympus or continuing his penance elsewhere, Chiron gave them sidelong knowing glances, but no one interfered and, for the time being, Percy was grateful. Because ever since a _damn nosebleed_ had started the apocalypse, he'd been more on edge. 

Percy slowed down to a jog. The harpies left him alone. Ahead of him the ocean rolled and crashed in its nighttime turmoil, a turmoil that reflected Percy's own feelings. He waded into the water until the water was well past his waist.

The weather was supposedly controlled around Camp Half-Blood but a storm had brewed up during the earlier hours of the night and now it had reached a vicious peak. In the distance, lightning struck the ocean's horizon. Dawn was in an hour or so and Percy just swayed there in the feral waters, allowing himself to get wet, allowing the waves to rise above him and crash down upon him. The sea didn't like to be restrained, and as cliché as that was, Percy understood it. 

As he waded through the water, Percy felt that familiar self-loathing sickness that he'd begun to feel ever since he'd developed his fear of drowning (now that fear had sort of turned into a morbid acceptance of whatever fate awaited him). A part of him was eager to go on with his life – attend school, see his mother and Paul, move to New Rome with Annabeth. That was the dream, right? That had been more than Percy ever could have asked for. His mother was finally happy and able to live _her_ dream. Just recently, Percy had published a book about the Greek gods through a mortal man he'd met a long time ago. All the royalties were going to Sally since Percy wouldn't need much money once he moved to New Rome. Camp Jupiter had a sort of reward system  – work hard to ensure the survival of the camp and you're rewarded with security and benefits afterwards. Not a bad system, Percy thought. But that was all just well and good, his godly side reassured him. However, there was the _mortal_ side he had to deal with. See, they didn't talk about _that_ too much in all those stories surrounding Greek heroes like Hercules and Perseus. 

_I'm half god_ , he had constantly berated himself.  _Why is this affecting me so much?_

Because they don't tell you that. They don't tell you what happens when you face something so horrible... It doesn't matter that you're a half-blood, or even a half-blood child of the  _Big Three_ . There's that human side that has shattered and Percy was barely able to pick up the pieces. 

He could see how it affected Annabeth. But what he really wanted to know was how _Nico_ was dealing with it. The kid had gone through Tartarus alone and before that, he'd lost his sister. Percy had been thankful that he'd never lost anyone close to him... well, no immediate family anyway. It was bad enough having an absent father, but in a world where _everyone_ was missing a parent, he couldn't exactly complain. Percy had a feeling that Nico had answers and advice, but like with Jason, Percy found he couldn't approach the young demigod. And he couldn't imagine, especially after Nico's kinda rushed confession to him not too long ago, that the kid would take too well to being asked about Tartarus. Percy had realised that he'd taken Nico for granted and he knew that it would be stupid to walk up to the kid and be like,  “Hey! I'm certainly glad _that_ quest is over and congrats on getting your life together and finding happiness. So, tell me, do you ever claw your own face bloody during nightmares you have of your time in Tartarus? ” Jason, in his diplomatic way, could probably find a way of talking about those things with Nico, but Percy didn't dare. He wanted to know how Nico dealt with the pieces, how Nico was putting them back together. Whatever glue it was that that kid was using to keep himself together, Percy wanted it. 

You know what the sickest thing was though? Despite the fact that he was so confused and anxious all the time these days, there was a third part of him, a part that was both mortal and immortal, that _longed_ for another quest. Thankfully, this part was small but it still gnawed at the back of Percy's mind like a splinter that he couldn't pull out. It was a big  “now what?” How was he supposed to go back to high school and sit amongst kids who led normal lives? He couldn't even imagine it. He was just supposed to settle in, be a good boy, keep his head down, do his school work, move to New Rome with his girlfriend, finish college and do some measly adult job and then what? That's it? That's the meaning of life? Percy figured he and Annabeth might raise a family later, like in a decade or so. Their children would be legacies. And hopefully, down the bloodline, the godly blood would become so weak, Percy wouldn't have to worry about his kids and grand kids and great-grand kids having to go through what he and Annabeth had gone through. 

Even through all of that, a small, very repulsive part of him yearned for another fight, another quest. Perhaps even another prophecy. But prophecies were down for the time being. The Apollo kids were perplexed about it and even Rachel began joking about whether or not this was the end of her maidenhood. Yeah, at this point, another prophecy would almost be a blessing.

_Be careful what you wish for_ . 

Thousands and thousands of possibilities whirled around Percy's head, all fighting for attention and thus, Percy's anxiety grew, even while being held at bay by the calming presence of the wild ocean at hand.

It was just too much. Wasn't there a saying out there about thinking too far into the future? Just worry about the now, right?

Worry about the now.

Think about the present.

_Well_ ,  _I've got one foot in the door of a mental hospital. What should I do about that?_

Right now, nothing.

Percy was going to do nothing.

He was going to think of nothing.

He was going to be nothing.

He was going to feel nothing.

Because, at the moment, feeling nothing surely must be better than feeling everything.

 

♦ ♦ ♦

 

“Oh-tah-hee-chew,” Piper said very slowly, enunciating every syllable clearly. 

“Oh-tah-heh-chew,” Drew repeated, looking a little disdainfully uncertain, but complying nonetheless. 

“Close enough.” Piper sighed. She'd been trying to teach Drew basic Cherokee all morning in exchange for Japanese lessons but it was proving to be more tiresome than she'd expected. She'd learnt that Drew was a very scornful and impatient, even while being nice. It didn't affect Piper too much because she could tell Drew meant no harm, but it did become mildly irritating when Drew insulted the Cherokee language simply because she wasn't able to pick it up so easily. And explaining the history to Drew? Like how it's an Iroquoian language that has roots that are nearly 4,000 years old? Drew had yawned and begun to play with her hair. 

Learning Japanese proved to be infinitely easier for Piper than teaching Cherokee. Drew, herself, didn't even have to do much. She started by handing Piper charts of the hiragana and katakana alphabets and going through each letter and how they are pronounced. When Drew was done, she left Piper to her own devices and went to go read a book on nature symbols and kama sutra.

Piper sat on the steps outside the cabin, notebook splayed on her lap, doodling Japanese characters while enjoying the beautiful weather. It had stormed that morning so the air was still filled with a pleasant, dewy humidity and when the sun shone, a faded rainbow lingered in the distance. Piper had an image of Jason flying through a rainbow and smiled to herself. Though her thoughts were pleasant and light, they were interrupted by the sounds of hammers and anvils and singing and shouting. Piper craned her neck out and peered down at Hephaestus cabin. For a bunch of kids who weren't really known for elegance and style, the cabin was beautiful. It was enormous, for one thing, only hairs smaller than the Hera cabin, which stood empty. It had a glistening Islamic inspired archway with doors that opened only when a certain sequence of numbers and letters had been properly inputted into the lock – though the lock itself was quite a bit more than your average bike lock. It reminded Piper of something out of a steampunk novel, with all its gears and sprockets and its copper, brass, bronze, and gold metal engravings. In fact, the whole cabin looked like something out of a Philip Pullman novel. 

At the moment, however, a load of steam was rising up out of one of the gothic inspired chimneys and Piper could hear what appeared to be a group of kids singing a dance-on-the-table pub style song. She could just make out the lyrics:

 

Stronger than Perseus and wiser than Theseus

Gone in smoke'n flame, he's still beside us

Because that's the Vulcan wayyy! Hey!

'Cause that's the Vulcan way!

 

Smarter than 'Dysseus and madder than Orpheus

Rose up in smoke'n flame, he's still beside us

Because that's the Vulcan wayyy! Hey!

'Cause that's the Vulcan way!

 

With a tug on her heart, Piper realized that they were singing about Leo. Roman and Greek demigods were busy working on a new project – one that had been found in Bunker 9 just a few days ago – and it was called 'Daedalus's Bridge.' According to the Athena cabin, it was supposed to bridge the Roman and Greek camps, even in spite of the 3,500 mile distance between them. Theoretically, it was a bridge that offered safe passage between the camps for a feasible amount of time and low cost. How it worked exactly, Piper didn't have a clue. Emotions, languages, things that required more heart and less logic... those were things Piper understood. But when it came down to mystical mathematics and scientific equations, she was pretty sure she'd struggle. Athena cabin had teamed up with Ares, Hephaestus, and... Jason... and the Roman counterparts to build this bridge. Most of the Romans were still over at Camp Jupiter. As Camp Jupiter was much bigger and more demigods and legacies stayed at camp all year around while most of the Camp Half-Blood demigods would be heading back into the mortal world in a couple days, Vulcan kids were spending time with Hephaestus kids when building the bridge. They were making good progress from what Piper could tell, too. 

It was nice to hear both camps singing about Leo though. It made Piper sad. She never realized she would miss Leo's cheesy banter. But Piper didn't like to dwell on death. It reminded her too much of the time she almost lost her father. She was going back to him in a couple days and the thought was daunting: how long had it been since she'd last seen him? Nine months? Ten? More? She'd lost count and that was a rare thing for Piper McLean, for she used to keep a daily calendar count of the exact amount of days that had passed since she'd seen her father. Exact amount of days, hours and minutes.

But now, she wasn't sure how much time had passed and only a part of her was longing to go back. She didn't miss her old life but she did miss her old man. She wondered if their lives would be any different upon her return… if her father had changed at all… if he _could_ change…

At that moment, Piper felt a wave of apprehension flavored with bitter sarcasm and she glanced around. Percy was coming her way. She gauged his emotions and said evenly,

“Well, _you_ look like you’ve been doing more screaming than chatting, don’t you. What’s up?”

As expected, Percy frowned but the corners of his lips twitched. He plopped down beside her.

“Nightmares.”

Piper surveyed his face. “Huh. I don’t see any Freddy Krueger scratches though.”

“Shut up.” He nudged her shoulder playfully and then sighed. “Not that so much as… I, uh… have nightmares about people close to me turning into monsters.”

Piper nodded as though she were accepting that fact. “No more imagining people getting their faces eaten off by empousai?”

“Oh no, I still do that.”

Piper made a ‘hm’ sound. “Well, I don’t really care what I look like with my face getting eaten off but I kinda wanna know what monster you see me turning into.”

“Only the ugliest of them all.”

“Of course. Gotta be the ugliest.”

“She’d be green, with warty skin—“

“Sounds like me.”

“And she wouldn’t have lips and she’d drool and slobber a lot and have these big ears and eyes that are, like, foggy—“

“Oh yeah,” Piper said, nodding, biting back a grin. “Gotta have cataracts. Love those.”

Percy laughed. It felt good to laugh. He didn’t do it much but Piper was very good at getting him to loosen up. In the midst of laughing, he looked over at the notebook on her lap.

“What’s that? It looks nice.”

Piper looked down at her notebook and sighed. “Oh well, Drew Tanaka and I are doing a language exchange. It’s like.. a way to keep the peace, I guess. This is my Japanese practice.”

“What are you teaching her, French?”

“No, idiot, she already speaks French. ‘Cause it’s the language of _luuuurve_ … “ She chuckled. “I’m teaching— well, _attempting_ to teach— her Cherokee. But… she hates the language.”

“So why is she even learning? How can she put up with learning a language she hates from someone _like you_?”

Piper’s eyes twinkled. “I’ve heard rumors.”

Percy made an ‘ah, I see’ sort of face. “Right, right. Here I was thinking it was your irresistible _charm_.”

This time, Piper punched Percy in the shoulder. And it hurt. Percy laughed again. Light banter was much better than imagining people’s faces getting eaten off by demonic ladies after all.

“Maybe it _is_ my irresistible charm…” she added a little slyly.

“Yeah, okay, Piper Mc-Get-Outta-Town. How are you even able to learn Japanese anyway? I can barely keep up with English.”

Piper shrugged. “It’s hard but languages do come a little more naturally to me than I guess they would to most. I think it has to do with being an Aphrodite kid. French is like our _thing_ but languages break down barriers between cultures and help create bonds that cross oceans so… that sounds like something Aphrodite would be fond of, I guess.”

“Sounds like the Hermes kids, too. They all speak like three languages at least.”

“What? Really? But they seem so… so…”

And again, for the third time, Percy had to laugh a little. Piper made things so easy. Annabeth was his love but right now, Annabeth’s mind was in as much a state of turmoil as his own. Piper was impossible not to get along with. She was so relaxed and chill and nonchalant about most things.

“So stupid and immature, yeah, I know.” Percy was then very glad that Piper had not gone through Tartarus. As much as he was struggling, he didn’t want to see his friend go through what he was going through. Piper knew emotions, she knew how to deal with them, but he couldn’t imagine the kind of pain someone like _her_ would feel… “But they’re kids of the god who delivers messages and stuff so it makes sense, right? Uh, speaking of traveling…” Percy glanced at her anxiously and then added cautiously, “…are you and Jason going to be okay?”

Piper winced inwardly. It was a bit too sensitive of a topic to discuss but she knew that Percy wasn’t exactly being his most mindful at the moment. So she mentally forgave him, let out an unhappy breath of air and said, “I want to think so. I think it’s kinda in my nature to believe in that whole ‘love will find a way’ stuff but after all the cheesy romantic roles I’ve seen my dad take on… Jason’s leaving tomorrow but I can’t stop him. He’s gotta do it. That’s just who Jason is. Once he sets his mind on a task, and it’s _always_ going to be a noble task, he’s gotta go ahead and do it.”

“Haha, yeah… He’s been eating meals with me and stuff. Not really saying much or whatever, but it’s cool. I was just thinking how little I know him though…”

Piper’s eyes glazed over as she stared across camp. She didn’t say anything for a moment and Percy took that as his cue to shut up and smell the flowers. That was another ‘Piper’ thing to do - take a moment and just appreciate one’s surroundings. Percy had no idea how she did it, how easily she could silence him. Only Annabeth could do it better. But Percy did as he was ‘told’ and stared at everything around him. He took in all the campers doing their various things - Ares kids working together with the Hephaestus and Athena kids to build Daedalus’s Bridge - a project he probably should help with but he hadn’t felt the slightest motivation to do so. He saw a child of Demeter tending to the vines that grew about Demeter’s cabin. Several campers were sword fighting in the distance. Others were doing foot exercises. A couple of Hermes kids were showing off their javelin skills while another did a couple of back flips for her friends. There were satyrs and nymphs of all kinds running about, busying themselves with the changing weather, and the gardens and the strawberry fields.

“Hm…” Piper said, breaking the silence. As easy as it was to talk to Percy, she didn’t really like talking about Jason much these days. Not when he was leaving so soon. Not when he’d been so busy with preparations and the Bridge project that the two of them hardly spoke. They hung out officially twice since the defeat of Gaia and that had been great, but that had also been all. She didn’t fault him but it made her a little sad. Seems like a lot of things were making her sad these days…

“Guess I should go,” Percy said, standing up. “It was nice—“

“Ew, it’s the sea rat.”

Drew Tanaka appeared in the doorjamb of the Aphrodite cabin. She was dressed in short shorts and her camp t-shirt but even then, she managed to look as though she had just walked out of _Vogue_. Percy had a feeling Drew could get tossed about by a tornado and still come out with every strand of hair in place and not a single smudge of mascara.

“Shut up, Tanaka.” He flipped her the bird.

“Get off my turf, loser. McLean, seriously, get the pond scum away from here.”

Piper made a face and stood up.

“Whatever, I’m leaving,” Percy said. “Thanks again, Piper. It means a lot.” With that, he turned and left.

“Honestly, McLean, you need better taste in company.”

“Oh what, you mean like you?”

“Of course I mean me. When do I not mean me? Speaking of _moi_ , I need help with Cherokee.”

Piper scoffed. “Yeah, right.” But with one last long look at the campgrounds, she followed Drew back inside the cabin. She had a strange feeling about that day… Something ominous had struck a chord with her but the harder she thought about it, the further away it slipped. It had been there since the moment they returned to camp, like the world was slowly falling out of balance again. But Piper couldn't pinpoint what it was and whatever it was, she knew it would rear its ugly head soon. Finally, with a frustrated grunt, she allowed herself to fall back into the mindset of teaching the ever-ungrateful Drew the language of her blood and bones.

 

♦ ♦ ♦

 

“I’ve graphed a catenary to show—“ Annabeth began when the papers were yanked out of her hands by Nyssa. With a dust-encrusted scowl and the tiniest of pencil stubs that she kept in the breast pocket of her overalls, Nyssa redid some of Annabeth’s mathematics and handed the paper back. 

“Improved it, otherwise we’d be dealing with a type of concrete that responds too easily to the sound waves emitted from our footfalls.” 

“Wait, wait, sound waves emitted from our footfalls?” Annabeth repeated.

“Yeh…” Nyssa stared at Annabeth. “You’re, uh, joking, right?”

Annabeth glared.

“Okay, you’re _not_ joking. I thought you’d know about this. It’s basic bridge construction. You have resonant frequency, uh, not to be mistaken for aeroelastic flutter, and it’s caused by a multitude of things depending on the sturdiness of the bridge and the materials it’s made from. Based off your chart and the stuff Daedalus is insisting we use in his blueprints, anything larger than a minotaur could cause oscillations in the bridge itself. I can’t tell how powerful they’d be, but what if we needed to march a battalion through—“

“I doubt that would be necessary,” Annabeth said, with a hint of coldness to her voice. She still had mixed doubts about the Romans but her faith in Reyna was very strong and if Reyna was loyal to Camp Half-Blood, too, then Annabeth was sure the rest of Camp Jupiter would follow. Besides, she couldn’t complain _too_ much if she and Percy were going to be living there, right? This bridge would make it super easy, and, hopefully, super _safe_ , to travel between the two camps. “Are you talking about the cat myth?”

“No, though you’re on the right track. A cat doesn’t have enough energy to destabilize a bridge, but there was something similar that happened to the Egyptian Bridge, a bridge built in Russia—“

“Yes, yes,” Annabeth cut in. “I know. That was a Von Traitteur bridge and his designs were hardly sound.”

“Yes but—“

“Nyssa, I know what I’m talking about. Stick to the original mathematics, please.”

With a disgruntled sigh, Annabeth turned away from the equally frustrated Hephaestus camper. It'd been almost as bad as Tartarus when she'd come back to Camp Half-Blood. Sure, there had been much to celebrate, and some to mourn, but time had began to drag. In her mind, she was walking down a dimly lit tunnel and every time she thought she was getting close to the end, she'd recognize something in the tunnel she'd seen before and she'd know that the end was still very far away. She found herself sitting in bed with her knees drawn to her chin and she'd just stare... deep into the early morning. Annabeth had almost resigned as cabin counselor, but Percy wouldn't let her. She didn't get a chance to protest because not a couple days after Leo's funeral, the Hephaestus campers uncovered a Vatican's archives worth of blueprints. That was when Annabeth found herself diving into her newfound work. Athena cabin volunteered for its academic genius. Hephaestus took charge with its metal forging and mechanical engineering skills. Ares cabin volunteered for strength. Hazel helped move the Earth underground while Jason helped with the above ground work, soaring through the air like his usual blond superman self. Jason proved to be versatile when it came to mathematics and, unlike Percy, he listened attentively to Annabeth's rants about architecture and even seemed to understand what she was saying. He often asked a lot of probing questions and Annabeth knew that being kept out of that depressive part of her head was helping a lot.

At the moment, she butted heads with Nyssa, but she also knew that Nyssa was right this time. Annabeth didn't care; Nyssa would do what she wanted anyway because Nyssa was an obstinate brat. A respectable and intelligent obstinate brat, but still.

After the project on the bridge had begun, Annabeth began sleeping in Percy's cabin at night. Chiron had given her a look but she had stared back at him defiantly, as though daring him to question her. Chiron said nothing. Maybe that wild, demonic look in her eyes was useful for _something_ after all. 

Annabeth felt her most vibrant and herself when she was working. Even though she was still what she reluctantly called 'scatterbrained,' she could focus for more than a couple hours without envisioning scenes from Tartarus.

That was why when, hours later she was wandering around the outskirts of camp lost in her thoughts, she saw the white horse, she thought she was imagining it.

But then Annabeth stopped.

And stared uncertainly at the figure before her.

The first thing she noticed was obviously the horse – the horse with the purest, whitest coat she'd ever seen. A coat so blinding and so magnificent,  _the_ Pegasus would have been envious. Horses were supposedly considered perfect creatures, according to Poseidon. Annabeth had never been a huge fan herself; she'd had a bad experience with a horse on her uncle's farm when she was really little before she ran away to Camp Half-Blood and things just kind of went downhill from there. But  _this_ horse... was unlike anything she could imagine Poseidon creating. It stood at a massive nineteen or twenty hands, if not more. It's mane and tail flowered in an invisible wind. It didn't look  _real_ . Which was saying a lot, really, considering the amount of unbelievable things Annabeth had witnessed. 

The horse gazed down upon her and its eyes were alight with an intelligence she'd never seen before in any other animal. This was no dumb, easily frightened beast. This was a godly steed but of  _which_ god, she couldn't even begin to fathom. Around its head was a soft, glowing circle of light. 

And upon the horse's back was its rider, an androgynous figure also robed in white. She couldn't see the rider's face for unlike his steed, his form was unclear, like he'd been drawn with charcoal. But his presence was staggering. A hand of steel clutched Annabeth's heart. She wanted to rack her brain for all the myths she knew that would describe this gallant, deadly horseman, but nothing came to mind. The last thing she saw before she took off running was his crown of gold – a deadly crown, devoid of jewels, but with intricate engravings in the metal and—

Much to her chagrin as a daughter of Athena, Annabeth's feet moved before her mind could come to a decision. She knew she had to find help, get back up. But she also knew that nothing in Camp Half-Blood could stand against the rider and his regal steed. Unable to calm down, her breath caught in her throat, she scrambled through brushes and brambles, panting, her feet like jelly until she ran straight into someone.

“ _Oof!_ ” Pause. “Annabeth?  _Annabeth?_ ”

Relief flooded into her veins. “Jason, I can't, I can't do this—I need Percy, where's Percy--”

“What? What's wrong? What happened?”

He let go of her once she had steadied her footing. She glanced around wildly. “I saw something—a horse and--”

Jason drew in a sharp breath. “You saw a--”

“--white horse, big with—with a rider wearing a crown--”

“Oh Romulus.” Jason drew himself up. Annabeth could literally see his muscles coil into a 'ready' position and she was reminded of a lion, or better yet – a lioness, since they were the ones who did most of the hunting in the pride. “I saw him, too. I was... I just... I don't remember what I was doing but I looked up and--”

“He was there,” Annabeth finished softly, almost unable to hear herself over the pounding of her heart. “He just... he looked at me and I...”

“It wasn't supposed to be you,” Jason said, turning his head this way and that as though he were looking for the rider and his steed. “It wasn't supposed to be  _you_ . He came for me. He was out of  _my_ head. I know it. I just know it.”

“Then why is he real?” Annabeth cried out, surprised at the loudness and desperation of her voice.

“It's a warning.” Silently, Jason drew his gladius. “We've got to get back to camp. Are you okay with flying?”

 

♦ ♦ ♦

 

_Red._

When the dreams began, Hazel wasn't entirely sure they were worth mentioning. First, they weren't nightmares and Hazel didn't wake up feeling paranoid or worried. Second, the dreams were obscure as though something or someone were trying to reach her but couldn't. And third, in their obscurity, the dreams consisted mostly of a swirling spectrum of hazy blues and teals as though they were trying to combat the color red.

She often work feeling confused but calm and each night, she began to be more and more aware during her dreams to the point where she found herself talking aloud to whomever or whatever it was that was attempting to communicate with her.

_Red._

The dreams, however, took a backseat to her duties at Camp Jupiter and for a couple weeks, things seemed to be going smoothly. The Vulcan demigods and legacies who hadn't gone over to Camp Half-Blood to help build Daedalus's Bridge were spending much of their free time working on the other end of the bridge there at Camp Jupiter. Hazel started by helping them move rocks and such.

And that's when things started to get a little scary.

It happened while she was kicking up rocks and molding them into their appropriate shapes.

She hadn't even realized she was doing it until Nathan, an older legionnaire and once close friend of Jason's, tapped her on the shoulder and said,

“I have no idea what you're singing but it's really, really nice.”

Hazel's eyes had widened. “I...I was singing?”

Nathan frowned. “Uh... yeah. Um... it wasn't something I recognized but, you know, I'm not very good at music anyway.” He laughed a little nervously, thrusting out his chest just a tad in a facade of confidence. That was Nathan – a very strong, good guy, with a hint of chauvinistic pride. It was cute in an eye-rolling sort of way. No one took him too seriously.

Hazel just blinked at him. “Um... that's okay. If you'll give me a moment...”

And with that, she went back to her bunk and tried to conjure up the words and tune that she had supposedly been singing but to no avail.

The song wasn't gone though. It came back right before she slept, when she was trying to eat, when she was bathing. The words would come to her long enough for her to sing them and then they'd fade.

“Hazel, are you okay?” Frank asked her one day. She took his hand and shooting up a foot in the air from a rock she had kicked up, she looked at him in the eye.  _Red._

“I don't know actually,” she admitted. Frank looked so gentle, even with his still newly chiseled face and his wide, unassuming eyes. She felt calmer when she was near him. “I've been having weird dreams and...”

“Weird dreams? What kind of dreams?” Frank's voice immediately took on a tone of concern.

Hazel shrugged. “I'm not sure but I have this feeling that something big is going to happen. I think I have to get to Camp Half-Blood.”

She actually didn't know where the Camp Half-Blood part came from. It just spewed out of her mouth, words unbidden, and she wasn't sure why, but they felt right. The more she thought about it, the more it was imperative for her to get to New York.

Frank opened his mouth to say something but Hazel just put a silencing finger to his lips. “Shh. Just trust me on this one, okay?” She kissed him, kicked the rocks back into the Earth and said, “I'll be back in a few days.”

She had to leave.

Camp Half-Blood held the answers and she could not afford to waste another moment.

 

\+ + +

 

Hazel was in the strawberry fields a few days later with Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the camp's Delphic Oracle. Both of them were picking strawberries for a good snack later (though Rachel wanted to use a few to make red dye for an art project she was working on) and neither of them were gathering very many as they kept eating them upon picking!

_Red_ . 

The word sifted through the breeze, an echo of a motif.

Even as they joked around so hard their stomachs were aching from laughter and their heads swam from oxygen deprivation, Hazel felt as though another presence were inside her mind, fighting for control. It wasn't very strong but it was urgent. It wanted to sing. This had happened a few times over the last couple of days and it was beginning to get a little disorienting. Hazel won this mental battle, too, and felt a wave of disappointment that didn't come from her.

There was so much red. Red in the strawberries. Red in Rachel's hair. Red in Rachel's  _name_ . Red in the nail polish Hazel was wearing. Red in the paint splatters on Rachel's khakis. 

Whatever it was that was inside Hazel's mind, the presence that made Hazel sing and dream, didn't like the color red. Hazel was about to be in the middle of two opposing forces and she didn't like it. So, to distract herself, she began to think out loud.

“Hey, Rach?”

“Yyahh?”

“Do you think there are other gods?”

Rachel paused thoughtfully. Straightening up and hoisting the strap of the strawberry basket over her shoulder, she said, “I don't know. I never really thought about it. I guess there could be. I mean, we have Roman and Greek gods, right?”

“Yeah... What if there _are_ other gods? Like Egyptian and Norse and Hindu and...”

Rachel shuddered. “I might have thought that would be awesome at one point but I think I've had enough godly stuff to last a hundred lifetimes.”

“But what if?”

Rachel pursed her lips, once again lost in thought.  _Red._ “Well, I guess it's possible. Maybe even likely. I don't think they'd all be here though. The Romans and Greeks are here because of Western civilization. I'm not sure where that leaves the Norse gods. They weren't the roots of Western society so I guess they'd still be up in Scandinavia? Like in Iceland? I guess the gods would go where they are most followed... The Hindu gods would be in India, right? The Japanese gods would definitely be in Japan since there are a lot of Shinto shrines still there and Japan's really homogeneous and stuff...”

“And what really keeps us all apart?”

Rachel chewed on a strawberry. “Some godly wall? The Mist? You're kind of the one that knows about all of that, Hazelnut.”

“Yeah, it would have to be the Mist because that's what protects mortals from the stuff we see. It's what kept the Roman and Greek camps divided. So what happens when the Mist fades?”

The voice in her head, the one that detested red, the one that made her sing and dream, gave a small, soft triumphant  _Yes! Yes! Yes!!_

Hazel was starting to think that maybe the voice was on her side and was trying to help her out. Still, it's not nice sharing your mind with someone or something else, especially an  _unknown_ something. 

“You mean will all the gods suddenly be aware of one another and cause chaos?”

Hazel nodded. “I guess so.”

“I don't know. I'm just a mortal girl who got kinda dragged into this.” Rachel grinned one of her quirky, crooked grins.

“If the Mist fades, more mortals will be exposed to all of our monsters...”

“ _What_ monsters?”

Oh yeah. That's right. It had happened right after the defeat of Gaea. No one knew if it was permanent or just sheer coincidence, but no monster had been seen since the most recent battle. Reyna had gone on a scouting venture with some other demigods and they'd come back completely unaffected and unharmed. No monster sightings had been reported. Seemed like demigods at Camp Half-Blood had noticed the same thing. Chiron's party ponies checked in saying that no monsters were in sight. BlackJack, Percy's steed, had also given the same message. Three, almost four, weeks certainly wasn't enough to come to any definitive conclusions but it was, indeed, starting to look as though all the monsters had been swallowed up with Gaea's return to slumber.

_Red_ . 

Hazel had most of the pieces. Well, all the pieces that had been given out. She saw them almost as clearly as she saw the tunnels in the Earth. But she was missing the biggest piece and she had no idea what that was. She took all the things she  _knew_ and sorted them into three geological categories: Igneous, Metamorphic and Sedimentary. Igneous, being volcanic, referred to facts that were still warm and uncertain, like fresh magma. Metamorphic, referring to minerals like garnet and kyanite that could change their appearance under large amounts of pressure, pointed to facts that were a bit more solid than magma but still not quite granite. And sedimentary, which referred to rocks made of many layers over time such as what made up the Grand Canyon, pointed to facts that were obvious and unlikely to be changed. So far, she knew she was having blue dreams, kept thinking about the word 'red,' was not alone in her mind, something big was coming and a few other things. All of it had to do with the Mist. Something was happening to the Mist. And Hazel, being a master of the Mist, was going to be placed right in the middle of it all. 

“Hazel, look!”

_Red_ . 

Hazel looked.

There, in the furthest section of the Strawberry Fields from where they were standing, was a lone figure. It was standing right at the protective boundary, it seemed.

Rachel placed a hand over her eyes and squinted. “Is that... is that Percy?”

Hazel had a bad feeling about this. The voice in her head reeled in terror.

“I think so...”

“Weird. We should go see what's up with him. Rumor has it he's been a little strange lately.”

“He went through Tartarus.” Hazel was mildly defensive when it came to mentions of Tartarus as her brother, Nico, had also survived its deepest, darkest pits. Only Nico had done it alone.

But Hazel followed Rachel down the row they were in and down one of the main aisles. The dirt squished gently beneath their sneakers and the strawberry smell was so strong.

_Lots of red_ , Hazel thought.  _There needs to be more blue_ . 

As they drew closer, Hazel saw that it was, indeed, Percy. His back was to them but his posture was coiled in defense and Riptide, his pen-sword, was drawn.

That was when Hazel saw exactly what it was Percy was looking at. It seemed to materialize out of thin air the closer they got to it.

“What... the... hell...” Rachel said quietly.

_Red_ . 

The voice, or presence, in Hazel's head cowered in fear. This didn't help reassure Hazel at all.

Just outside the protective barrier surrounding Camp Half-Blood was the meanest, most hellish motorcycle ever to be seen. A massive piece of art that gleamed crimson in the sunlight. It stood tall, seven or eight feet perhaps just at the seat. Its body was riddled with muscle as though it were alive. The front and rear cowls looked to be made of bones – human or beast, Hazel couldn't tell. Perched in front of the windscreen, just in the lower middle was an enormous skull. The most disconcerting part, aside from the fact that it was decked out like it was going to war against Tartarus itself, was that the paint really did look like blood and it dripped like blood and parts of it were dried like blood. Where droplets of the bloody paint fell, the ground sizzled and burned away.

_Red_ . 

Its headlights shown like eyes, eyes spouting flame. And upon its back sat a genderless rider, wreathed in fire and radiant with despair and hatred. Hazel could feel it inside her bones, the way they rattled with unprecedented anger.

The voice in her mind cried out pleas. It wanted to use the blue to drown out the red, but whatever  _that_ meant, Hazel had no idea. 

The rider was holding a massive sword and it, too, was sheathed in flame. The rider raised the sword and pointed it up and forward, like a challenge and when it moved, it rattled like a thousand bones and chains were clanking together. Hazel was reminded of her brother's skeleton army but even that didn't seem as fearsome as this rider. But whatever this rider and its steed were, they couldn't get past the boundary. They were not of demigod blood. They were not gods.

_At least not the same gods_ , Hazel thought wildly. The motorcycle revved and snarled as though responding to Hazel's thoughts. At this, Percy whirled around and whatever color was left in checks vanished when he saw Hazel and Rachel. 

“What are you two doing here? You aren't supposed to be here! He came for me!”

“Uh, for you?” Rachel demanded a little haughtily, though there was definitely an edge of consternation to her voice. “Why is there a big, scary fiery man riding a big, scary fiery motorcycle here for  _you_ ?”

Percy suddenly staggered, as though struck by an internal force. He moved like there was something alive inside him that was trying to crawl out. He coughed and sputtered. He capped Riptide. “It's... it's a warning. For us all.” He coughed again. “I can feel... I can feel his desire for battle...The whole world, drowning... drowning...”

Rachel and Hazel exchanged an uncertain glance and then both of them moved at the same time. They each took one of Percy's arms. Hazel didn't want to turn her back on the red rider. But Percy was weak and his skin was hot to the touch.

“Do you think it'll... just... stay there?” Hazel asked Rachel in a whisper as though the biker could hear them. Rachel shrugged.

“He won't leave till he gets...what he wants...” Percy choked out.

“Hurry,” Hazel said. Rachel nodded and as quickly as they could, they made their way back towards the heart of camp.

No one saw the lone black figure poised not too far away.

 

♦ ♦ ♦

 

Nico sat on the edge of his bed, tying the laces to his new, black army boots. He'd been enjoying his time at camp, for the most part. But there were times when even the sunshine didn't wash away his fears and anxiety. He found himself in the mortal world where he hopped in on mortals playing Mythomagic and he _always_ played for money. 

“I really don't like the idea of you playing out in the mortal world like that,” Will said, buttoning his own shirt. “At least, let me come with you.”

Nico shrugged. “It's okay, really. I promise. The monsters have gone into hibernation and the business is lucrative.” He'd wandered into the city and bought some new things at Macy's. “Honestly, Will, I don't even cheat. They're just not that good at the game. They just don't  _appreciate_ it.”

“Well, maybe you can teach me to appreciate it.”

Nico looked up sharply. “R-really?”

“I think you're pretty rad so why wouldn't I get interested in things you like?”

Nico felt a tightening in his chest that wasn't the result of anxiety or fear or anything like that, but something else all together. Something warm fluttered inside him. As though Will hadn't proven it over and over since Nico had returned to camp, Nico realized  _truly_ that he had found a friend. Not just a friend united in prophecy, not a sister figure, but someone outside all of that. Someone who stood outside the circle and peered in and still loved what he saw with no obligation or condition. Nico wanted to return the feelings. In fact, he was in half a mind to do something radical, like kiss the son of the Apollo. 

“Maybe we can play now?”

Thankfully, Will unintentionally interrupted Nico's mental kamikaze desire and Nico shook himself to clear his head.

“Now? Oh okay. Yeah, sure, why not?”

Nico got up off the bed, went over to his bookshelves and rummaged through some stacks of books before he found what he was looking for: a velvet cloth bag with a drawstring that held an enormous stack of battered  _Mythomagic_ cards. He hadn't played in ages. In fact, he thought he'd never play again. Not since Bianca... 

As Nico walked back over to the bed, he realized that the memory of his sister didn't leave him feeling empty or tired or anguished. He stood there for a moment, lost in thought, wondering if this was  _real_ . He forced himself to really think about his sister, to draw her in his mind. To remember her smile and laughter and the way her voice got when she scolded him. The way her thick eyebrows knitted together when she was frustrated. Her dimples when she did that amused lip-pursing thing she did whenever Nico said something funny. 

He found that his heart didn't pang. He found that he didn't pine for her.

This really was a summer of acceptances, wasn't it?

Nico wasn't entirely over Percy but he stopped thinking about him constantly. He stopped pining for him, too. Occasionally, when he saw Percy, his heart would jolt a little, but it was nothing like it was before. Nico was moving on.

“Okay,” he said, sitting on the bed. “This is the deck. Each player starts off with a minimum of sixty cards with no maximum. I have, like, six hundred cards, but to make things easier, we'll just stick with sixty and we'll do it randomly. I'll deal.”

He dealt Will sixty cards. That was another thing – Will had shown Nico that he liked Nico's presence unconditionally. It was true that Nico had felt alienated from camp and from the people around him for the longest time; Hades, he'd even felt mildly alienated before he came to camp but back then he had Bianca and  _Mythomagic_ . But Will showed him tough love. Will was more like, “yes, I know you've suffered, I know you're suffering, but if you want to be happy, sometimes you have to strive for it yourself and  _you_ have to make the first step. Even in the face of tribulation.” Nico had always felt that because society had treated him poorly, he owed no one, except Bianca, anything. And he still felt he owed nothing to anyone, but at the same time, he knew that Will was right: if he wanted things to change, if he wanted people's perceptions of him to change, he was going to have to make the first step in showing people, his fellow demigods, that he's not really that different from they are. He also realized he could do this without changing himself and  _that_ made him feel immensely powerful. 

“So you draw seven cards from your library,” Nico began. “Like here, I have Hermes's winged sandals, a golden apple, Thanatos--”

Nico froze.

He felt a wave of cold wash over him.

The entire world around him went gray, like something out of  _Silent Hill_ . Only he and Will were in full color. It was as though someone had really upped the brightness and took out a lot of contrast and color. The coldness gripped him deep from the inside, like his bone marrow were made of ice. Throat dry, he whispered, 

“He's here.”

“Who's here? Thanatos?” Will asked, eyebrows raised. He glanced around, following Nico's line of sight, but saw nothing.

“Yes. No. What? I don't know,” Nico responded distractedly. He stood up, like he was being drawn upward by a magnet. “Something's here. For me.”

Will also stood. “Should we, uh, alert Chiron?”

Nico held up a hand, listening to something – a something that wasn't a voice or a song or a sound, but a feeling. It came with the coldness.

“Thalia's tree,” he said, answering a question that hadn't been asked. “I gotta go.”

He grabbed his sword, sheathed it, and strode towards the cabin door.

“Nico, wait!” Will followed. “You aren't going alone. To meet, uh, whatever this is...”

Nico didn't bother responding and when he left his cabin, the coldness followed like a shroud. It was a coldness he ought to have been familiar with. He was the keeper of the keys to death, he was the leader of the ghostly armies of the underworld, he... he should know this.  _He should know this_ . 

He passed a couple Aphrodite kids sparring in high heels and gowns. He would've stayed to watch because they moved with the elegance of dancing water nymphs, but Nico couldn't focus on anything but getting to Thalia's tree.

With Will on his heels like an outrageously tall, lanky bodyguard, Nico made his way over a bridge that crossed the creek that led to Canoe Lake. He broke into a jog. Will followed, looking around them for signs of danger, but Nico was only focused on getting to Half-Blood Hill. That was where the danger would be.

And the source of the unknown coldness. The coldness that radiated everything that should come from the Underworld but had a semblance of power that Nico found he couldn't understand. Who was radiating this formidable coldness? Who held sway over the worlds in such a way that Nico, son of Hades, could not combat?

They clambered up the hill and to Thalia's massive pine. It was a pine of unusual size, with a trunk as thick as a house and it went up and up and up.

And there, parked by the base of Thalia's tree (which, despite his resentment for the Hunters of Artemis, still sent a wave of indignation through him), was an old off-white 1961 Lincoln Continental.

“Apollo's bow,” Will whispered.

The car was sleek and well-kept. To Nico, it should have been just another classic car.

But it wasn't. It gave off that coldness that Nico was struggling to comprehend. It wasn't of this world. It could've been made of nephrite with the way it absorbed light and warmth and the way the chrome gleamed... it was like the car was saying, in only the mildest menacing of tones, “everything you are, everything you dream of, everything you desire, everything you accomplish is absolutely meaningless when next to me.” Nico felt small.

Inside the car, the passenger sat, as though waiting for something, and Nico squinted. Was that a skeleton sitting behind the wheel? He was about to breathe a sigh of relief; skeletons Nico knew. But then then the driver moved, got out of the car, and wasn't a skeleton at all, but a man of venerable pallor and a tall and thin stature. He was the source of the ghastly coldness. And when he stood up straight, the gray hues vanished from the world and everything returned to normal. But that feeling that Nico felt in his bones still lingered. The man donned a long, black duster, and a perfectly tailored black suit. He looked as though he could have been a wealthy CEO of some major corporation but his face said otherwise.

Just like this wasn't a skeleton, this wasn't a man either.

“Hello, Nico,” he said, his voice resonant, low and soft. His accent was English but it wasn't very strong. “I am Death.”

A ringing silence.

Then,

“Excuse me?” Will said. “Death? You mean... Thanatos?”

The man didn't smile as much as he gave the impression of smiling. His face was long, narrow, his nose hooked, his lips thin. He would've been ugly if he'd been anyone else, but anyone could see that he was beautiful. His eyes were large and catlike and they were surprisingly gentle and wise.

“That is one... version, yes,” the man, Death, replied amicably. “A weaker version, I must admit.”

“'A weaker version?'” Will demanded, sounding as offended as Nico felt. “What version are you then?”

“God's.”

Will sat down on the ground with a  _thump_ !

Nico's hand went to the hilt of his sword.

“'God's,'” he repeated, as though he had not heard Death correctly. “ _The_ God? With Jesus and Lucifer and--”

Death gave a nod and a small shrug. “Well. I do not  _belong_ solely to God, of course. But... as of the moment, I stand  _with_ God.”

“Aren't they like... didn't Chiron call them the 'metaphysical' or something?” Will asked of Nico.

Nico just made a gesture like 'I don't even know; I'm just as confused as you are” and said,

“I... Well, this isn't a church.”

Death raised a cool eyebrow. “For someone of your intelligence, Nico di Angelo, I am amazed at your ignorance  _and_ your impudence.”

“Are you?” Nico shot back. He knew he should have been more polite but he was having a hard time controlling his feelings of helplessness. If it had been his life in danger, it wouldn't have mattered as much. But Will was there, too.

The coldness turned into darkness.

Once again, this was a darkness Nico didn't comprehend. He was stunned. Absolutely  _stunned_ and so, so,  _so_ indignant. The darkness was supposed to be  _his_ weapon,  _his_ tool and it was being used against him!

“Not really,” Death responded dryly, sighing.

“Why are you here? We're Greek demigods, not Christians.”

Nico wondered if that was an ignorant thing to say. He had no experience with demigods who may have retained their original faiths. Roman demigods usually came at young ages, so they rarely had time to be pulled into one faith or another beforehand. Nico hadn't been around Camp Half-Blood long enough to talk to those who may have been Christian or Muslim before they entered camp. Did they abandon their faiths when they found out pagan gods existed? Or could the two sets of beliefs – monotheism and polytheism – coincide? He wasn't sure  _how_ ... but Percy had briefly mentioned that Chiron brought up God once. And if there were Greek and Roman gods, why not other gods? Why not  _the_ God? They were deities, all founded upon belief. So... why not? 

But still...

He had no idea why this version of Death would be any more different than Thanatos. Thanatos was supposed to be death, too. His name  _meant_ Death and Thanatos had been born of Nyx and Erebos, of Night and Darkness. Thanatos was the twin to Hypnos (sleep) and brother to many other siblings of negative traits, like Oizys (suffering), Moros (doom), and Eris (strife), for example. But like all gods, Thanatos could be tricked. Bribed. King Sisyphus, the scoundrel that he was, had seen to that (though there were rumors that Nico's father, Lord Hades, had also bore witness to the weaknesses of Thanatos). 

Could this version of Death be bribed? Was he  _Thanatos_ ? He'd said that Thanatos was a version. So how much more powerful was the monotheistic representation of Death? To be honest, he didn't know much about Christianity except what he may have paid attention to as a kid. Bianca would've known more... 

Nico didn't know how these things worked and his head began to pound.

“Very hard to comprehend when you're a mortal, isn't it?” Death said quietly. “I am here because I am needed.”

“Why isn't Thanatos here then?”

“He is.”

Nico stared around. “Where? I know Lord Thanatos. I've had dealings with him.”

Death just stared at him and Nico understood that he meant to say no more on the subject.

“Nics, we have to tell Chiron about this...” Will broke the suffocating silence. “A Christian...A...” he fumbled for the right word, “A...European based idea of Death that isn't the Lord Thanatos that you and I know... “ Will sighed in exasperation at his own description, “...standing on the edge of Camp Half-Blood, I think, calls for the attention of the authorities.”

“Do you think Chiron is really going to know what to do about  _him_ ?” Nico said, thrusting a hand in Death's direction. 

“Well, the only experts I can think of would be children of Hades and you seem as lost as  _I_ am!”

Nico made a disapproving sound. He wanted to escape the intangible darkness that was emanating from Death. He also wanted to take a sip of nectar. He felt like he was having a migraine of titanic proportions.

“All right. Let's... go get someone.”

He moved away from the boundary but then glanced back at Death, a little hesitantly, “Are you going to stay there?”

Death shifted a little and Nico was reminded of the grace of a panther. “I shall wait.”

“Right. Okay. We'll be back.”

Will was about to burst into a run but Nico grabbed him and the two of them vanished into shadows.

 

 


End file.
